Pharaoh's Broker<br />Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner by Ellsworth Douglass (thriller books to read txt) 📖

did at home on Sunday mornings. During my previous nap the bunk had[96] seemed hard and cramped, and I had privately grumbled at the doctor for overlooking personal comforts; but now I felt that luxurious sensation of sleeping on soft mattresses and yielding springs, though of course I had neither. I do not know how soon I should have thoroughly awakened had I not lifted my hand to rub my eye, and unwittingly dealt myself a stinging blow in the face. This roused me.

But what was the matter with that arm? It was as it had once been in a nightmare, when it felt detached from its place, and moved lightly and without effort, like a bough in the wind. I pinched it with my other hand, and it was quite sensible to the pain. In fact, the other arm was now acting in the same queer way. I arose in bed quickly to see what was the matter, and the upper part of my body bent violently over and struck against my knees. Then my effort to take an upright position threw me on my back again. Evidently my muscles were not working as they were when I went to bed. They must be over-excited and over-active. I immediately thought of my heart as the principal and controlling muscle, and in my eagerness to feel its beating my hand dealt me a slap in the chest. These blows, though rapid, did not seem to hurt as much as they ought, after the first stinging sensation. I found my heart was beating regularly enough.

"Doctor!" I cried out presently, more to test[97] my voice than for anything else. It sounded perfectly natural, and my vocal chords were not over-stimulated or abnormal.

He came half way down from his compartment soon after hearing me, and rested his elbow against one side of the aperture between the compartments, leaning against the other side easily. He had a scale made of heavy coiled spring in his hand.

"I wish to calculate our distance from the Earth," he said. "Do you mind weighing yourself on these scales?" and he held the spiral down toward me.

"You can't support my weight!" I exclaimed, and springing up from the bed I bumped my head against the partition between the compartments, eight feet above my floor. I grasped the lower ring of the scale he held down and lifted up my feet. It seemed as if something were still supporting me from below, for scarcely one-tenth my weight had fallen upon my hands.

"You weigh twenty and a half pounds," he said, and then inquired, "What did you weigh on Earth?"

"One hundred and eighty-five pounds," I answered, just beginning to understand that our greatly increased distance from the Earth had much reduced her attraction for us.

"That is disappointing," he answered, "for we are only eight thousand miles from home; but our velocity is still constantly increasing."[98]

"I would like to buy things here and sell them at the surface," I exclaimed.

"You wouldn't make anything by it if you used the ordinary balance scales," replied the doctor.

Try as hard as I would, I could not accustom my muscles to these new conditions. They were too gross and clumsy for the fine and delicate efforts which were now necessary. I was constantly hitting and slapping myself, though these blows scarcely hurt, and never resulted in bruises. I attempted a thorough re-training of my muscles, which was to all intents an utter failure, for weight continued diminishing much more rapidly than my stubborn muscles could appreciate. After another eight thousand miles, which were quickly made, we had but one twenty-fifth our usual weight, which reduced me to seven pounds. And for most of the trip we weighed practically nothing, suffering many inconveniences on that account.

[99]

CHAPTER IX Tricks of Refraction

The doctor figured out that we should be quite insensible to any weight when we were seventy-five thousand miles from the Earth. At fifty thousand miles I would still weigh a pound, and when we had finished the first million miles, the entire projectile, with its two occupants and all its dead weight, would weigh considerably less than an ounce. That was a mere start on the enormous trip ahead of us; but when that distance was reached, we could no longer count upon terrestrial gravity for accelerating our speed. We must travel with our accumulated momentum, unless by that time the Sun should have taken the place of the Earth, and with his vaster forces continue to repel us Marsward.

As we sat talking the doctor grew weary, and soon unconsciously dropped asleep. I left him to enjoy his rest, and, tossing a scrap of ham bone to Two-spot, I went up to take my place at the telescope.[100]

Mars seemed to be exactly in the right part of the field. I surveyed the starry stretches ahead with a feeling a little akin to fear. I was queerly affected by the vast expanse of loneliness outside, and by the deathly quiet prevailing both without and within. There was not the slightest whizzing or whistling now. We might be hanging perfectly motionless in space for all I knew. The batteries made no sound either. I could hear only the low, regular breathing of the doctor as he slept, and the slight crunching of Two-spot on his bone. Presently I thought of looking for the danger lights, but I looked through the telescope instead, and saw the little red planet in his proper place.

What a vast distance we were from any planet! If anything were to happen to us, no one on Earth or in the heavens would ever know of it. I had never been homesick, but a very little would have made me Earthsick just then. I did not like the upper end of the projectile because I could not look back at the home planet. I wondered if it was all dark back that way, or if those warning lights had begun to appear. That idea seemed to haunt me. I touched the steering wheel just a little while I kept my eyes on Mars. He moved slightly in the field at once. Then I turned the wheel back until he took his former place. It was reassuring to know how easily the projectile minded her great rudder, which was now fully extended[101] like an enormous wing. This made me feel that we were masters of the situation, that all this vast space was as nothing to us, that any planet in the heavens must mind us, and that though Earth was driving us away, she must draw us back if we willed it. More than that, she would warn us of all dangers. Perhaps she was sending that warning now. I had promised to look out for it. I felt that I must go down. I crept softly past the doctor and stooped over the port-hole. My eyes had scarcely found the Earth in the darkness when I drew back quickly and clapped my hand over my mouth to prevent a cry escaping me. Then I looked again more closely. There was no small illuminated portion of the surface this time, but a great smear of light just outside the edge of the Earth. It was of a dull red colour, with rainbow tints around the edges, and was much the shape of a great umbrella held just above one quarter of her surface to westward.

I gave the steering wheel in my compartment a sharp turn in the direction which should cause the light to disappear. Then I crouched and looked again, but instead of being reduced in size the light broadened and swelled. It was as if one edge of the umbrella were left against the Earth's surface, and then the umbrella was being turned gradually around until it faced me and formed an enormous disc, apparently a third as big as the Earth. Then, as it slowly moved outward, its edge[102] seemed to cleave to the Earth's, as two drops of water do when about to separate. Finally, it detached itself entirely, and stood as a great muddy red orb a little to the west of and above the Earth. It filled me with dismay to see all this happen after I had turned the rudder in the direction which should have corrected our course. In desperation I gave the wheel an additional hard turn and looked again. At last the great red patch was shrinking; slowly it diminished, and finally disappeared. But just as I was breathing a sigh of relief, I noticed the white sickle of light on the east side that I had seen before; only it was increasing most threateningly now. Yes, it was assuming the same umbrella shape and detaching itself a little from the eastern edge of the Earth. There was still a narrow rim of bright white light on the Earth, and this dimmer umbrella shape was faintly separated from its edge. Its outlines were marked by flashes of rainbow colours, as had been the case on the other side. I sprang to the wheel and gave it several frantic turns back the other way. Then I ran up to the telescope for a hurried view, and Mars was nowhere to be seen! I hastened back to the wheel and gave it a vicious additional turn. I was determined to prevent this umbrella from opening at me! And true enough it ceased enlarging, and gradually shrank and settled back upon the surface of the Earth. Then slowly it faded and disappeared, as it[103] had done before when the doctor had corrected the course. I eased back the wheel and went to look for Mars again, but he was not in the field. As I returned I brushed unconsciously against the doctor in my excitement. He roused himself, sat up, and watched me peering out of the port-hole. I was gazing at a new appearance.

"There it is again!" I cried, for below the Earth and to westward a pale white disc came into view all at once, not gradually, as if emerging from behind the Earth, but springing out complete and detached.

"Doctor!" I said, catching him by the arm and pulling him down to the port-hole, "what is that?"

"That? That is the Moon, my boy. Has it excited you so much?"

"Yes; I have been trying to dodge it. But you had better look to the wheel," I cried.

He ran up to the telescope, and I heard him exclaim, "Donnerwetter!" half under his breath. But with a few careful turns of the wheel he found the planet again, and moved him to the right part of the field. Meanwhile the Full Moon shone on us with its pale glimmer. But a thin rim of it next to the Earth gleamed brightly with rich silver light.

"I thought you said we had started in the dark of the Moon. I thought it was behind the Earth," I interposed.[104]

"That is the New Moon just emerging. It will probably not be seen on the Earth until to-morrow night, but as we are at a greater distance we see it first," replied the doctor.

"But that is not a New Moon, it is a Full Moon, which should not be seen for fourteen days yet," I objected.

"Pardon me, it is a New Moon," he insisted. "That inner rim of brightness is all the sunlight she reflects. The paler glimmer is Earth-light, which she reflects. When she is really a Full Moon, she will be perfectly dark to us."

Then I explained to him the first umbrella appearance, and its gradual swelling and final disappearance.

"Rainbow colours around the edge and a gradual changing of the shape, you say? That means refraction. The Earth's atmosphere has been playing tricks on you. The umbrella of dull red light was a refracted view of the Moon before she really came into sight. Rays of light from the hidden Moon were bent around to you. Then, as she gradually moved from behind the Earth, her appearance was magnified by the convex lens formed by the atmosphere, bent over that planet. Presently it diminished and went out altogether, you say?"

"Yes, but that was because I steered away from her," I replied.

"No; you could hardly lose her so easily," he[105] answered. "Did you ever try holding an object behind a water-bottle or a gold-fish jar? There is a place near the edge of the jar where a thing cannot be seen, though the glass and water are perfectly transparent. The rays of light from the object are bent around, through the glass and water, away from the eyes of the observer. It was like that with the Moon when she disappeared. She was really drawing out from the Earth all the time. Finally, when her light passed beyond the atmosphere altogether, she became suddenly visible in a different place and shining with another colour. What we see now is the real Moon in her true place. The other appearances were all tricks of refraction."

"But when I had turned away," I explained, "there came a thin rim of bright light on the other side of the Earth, and a gradually appearing umbrella shape there too."

"Ah, then you steered far enough out of